So Lost
by suspensegirl
Summary: CN convo at the bar about NS. Post 3x11, CB references. ONESHOT


A/N: Did I say I suck at not writing? Because just in case I didn't…I **SUCK** at not writing. Lol. I think I've decided to restate my current status…from 'on hiatus' to 'on semi-hiatus'. Lol. I mean, seriously. *shakes head at self* It's my obsession! I can't just give it up! *whimpers* EVEN for finals. Lol. So…maybe I'll be writing something once or twice a week for the next 2 weeks instead of every or every other day. XD Haha. I'm terrible. But review!! I know you love me. ;p

This fic is just a little oneshot of CN's convo post 3x11. Heheh. *had to* How could I _not_ write it before the next episode?! It wouldn't be as cool, and I'm sure I definitely wouldn't get as many reviews. *convinced* lol. Read on! =D

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His glazed eyes moved over the smooth, wood counter at the bar. Drinks were coming and going, but all he could think of was _her_. The way her eyes just looked at him in pity and maybe at something she had not seen since she came back from boarding school almost three years earlier.

_What had gone wrong?_

"Talk to me, man," he heard Chuck say beside him, his firm grip on his shoulder.

He sighed. "What's there to tell?" he stared on blankly in front of him, moving his eyes from the wooden bar to the lineup of drinks behind the counter. He brought the scotch glass to his mouth again and took another sip of the beverage.

It was Chuck who had said to go get drunk, had encouraged it heavily even. It was what they had done the year before after anything between Mr. Archibald and Vanessa had been fixed. It was when their friendship had finally come back together. It was just what they did when something went well…or when something was so far gone that it didn't look like it would ever resurface. In high school they smoke a joint for these things most often, but bar drinking had slowly overtaken those drugs in the race, and now here they were again. But whatever usually worked in forgetting his woes when things went sour was completely gone, almost as if it had never existed to begin with.

The quiet noise of Chuck's brief sigh hardly registered to him. He appreciated the help his best friend was trying to offer, but he just couldn't take that olive branch. Not this time around. Neither of them hardly even drank the tempting alcohol sitting inches away. The bartender looked at them strangely a couple times, but Chuck had waved him off and the man seemed to be permanently focused on his other customers after that.

"Nate," he prompted, moving his grip along a bit on his shoulder.

The blonde turned his head to him and Chuck's heart dropped for the sadness etched across his best friend's face.

"I lost her," he whispered, and Chuck found a breath strangled in his throat. He swallowed hard and forced his eyes to remain pinned to the darkened blues. Nate's face turned away and his eyes lowered to the way his hands slowly passed the half-empty glass of scotch between them.

"You didn't lose her," Chuck insisted. There was so much confidence in his voice that Nate almost believed him.

"I'm always losing her."

Chuck closed his eyes in helplessness as he moved his hand from his friend's shoulder to the cold, smooth wood of the bar's counter. He wasn't going to deny _that_ truth. Perhaps if he was silent a little longer, his best friend would open up to him. _Maybe_.

"I _had_ her," he breathed, "I had her, but…I was still with Blair, and so it was wrong," he tried to convince himself. He shook his head softly. "And then when I wasn't, she had Dan and I had Vanessa, and then we wasted the next year of our lives not only with them but also the most random people we could find." He chuckled, trying to fight the pain. His best friend saw it though, would have been blind to miss it. _He_ had lost Blair enough times to know the heartbreak of what appeared impossible to obtain. He also made a mental note though, not to inform Jenny she had just been a random hook-up to Nate, the boy she probably fantasized about since she laid eyes on him her freshman year. Just like all the other girls.

"And Tripp!" he scoffed. "Outdone by my own _married_ cousin?" He shook his head. "Who would've thought?" he muttered.

"Hey, it won't last," Chuck said, stopping the frustrated blonde mess when he tried to leave his bar stool. Nate set a pair of mournful eyes on him.

"You don't know that—"

"I do," he said.

Nate stared at him.

"No one thought Blair and I would work, and now…look."

Nate blinked, seeming to let the idea sink in. "Tha—That's different," he shook his head, looking towards the ground. It could not be that simple.

"_Is_ it?" he challenged. Nate's eyes flashed to his. The raised eyebrows of his best friend normally would have humored him, but he was serious there was no way he was going to try and poke fun—cause a joke. What would be the point?

Chuck leaned, forcing Nate to concentrate harder on his words. "Blair and I are the same, just like you and Serena."

"Now, I wouldn't—"

He held up a hand and Nate silenced himself. "Blair refused to be with me because she was dating you, and Serena refused to be with you because you were dating Blair."

It began to soak in.

"It's been the four of us since we were five years old, Nathaniel. We just got mixed up in the beginning." He shrugged, turning back to his scotch on the bar. "Personally, I blame Blair," he muttered in the midst of his sip.

Nate chuckled, smiling at his friend. "I'm sure she'd say the same about you." He shook his head, reaching for his drink as well.

"How do you get that idea, Nathaniel?" he quirked an eyebrow. "Blair fantasized you as her Prince Charming from the beginning. And what Blair wants she gets. If she hadn't—"

"—and I'm sure your womanizing ways had nothing to with it," he smirked as Chuck's face smoothed over. He was humored.

"Touché."

He raised his glass to Nate's, and they clinked against each other. The blonde decided not to mention the factor of them all knowing each other since they were in kindergarten, and Chuck not having lost his virginity until sixth grade. If he was smart though, he would eventually come to that realization. By then his window of opportunity for comebacks would have closed. Or maybe he was just letting it slide for the sake of his depressed best friend. Regardless, Nate enjoyed that small leverage of power he held, even if it was probably an imaginary one.

"We suck," Nate decided, and Chuck turned his head towards him again after having taken another sip. The glasses were actually empty again and the bar tender reveled in it, pouring them some more. Chuck was contemplating leaving the bar for another if the man got too jumpy.

"And why pray tell is this?" he asked.

Nate smirked again. "If we would've gotten with the right ones at the beginning, none of this would have happened.

Chuck smiled. "Somehow I don't think it would've been that easy."

Nate shrugged and then sighed.

"Life is never that easy," the brunette said, his voice lowering into a whisper.

The blonde nodded, and his thoughts drifted back to Serena, the girl that always took his breath away. The girl he had been enraptured with since the very beginning, though feelings had not taken full bloom until after he and Blair had started dating. There was mistake number one.

"_You loved me?"_

_He sighed, soft and exasperated, and his eyes pinned against hers again. Those amazing lose-yourself-in eyes. He shook his head, hardly realizing he was having this conversation._

"_Of course I did."_

Chuck's position tense and Nate could tell he was a little frustrated their little talk hadn't entirely mended things over. He knew he understood though. The last year of Chuck and Blair angst and frustrations proved that.

_But, God, he had loved that blonde princess._ She was so vibrant, so full of life, and he was drawn to her like a moth to the flame.

"I told her…" Chuck's head turned to his friend, who had once again decided to speak. "I told her to stay with me, to not get in the car."

"_Give me the true reason why I should stay right where I am…and not get in the car. Three words. Eight letters. Say it and I'm yours."_

Chuck's eyes closed at the memory, of how he had lost her again, and how he would continue to lose her throughout that whole year.

"Did she—" he cleared his throat, "Did she _request_ anything of you?"

"No," Nate shook his head. Chuck breathed a sigh of relief, though he didn't have a doubt in his mind that the blonde would comply with what _he_ had been so unable to give all year long. It was a miracle Blair never gave up on him. That very fact made him fall more and more in love with her every day. "She just said she was sorry and left."

Chuck nodded at the vague set of events that had been expressed to him.

"Well," he said suddenly, squeezing his best friend's shoulder again. "I said we'd get drunk, and I wasn't playing around," he said, a little teasingly. Nate turned his head to him and gave into a quiet chuckle and a simple smile. Chuck raised his hand for the bartender to come over again and refill their drinks. The man seemed to have become aware of the boy's disturbed stares and retreated to a professional demeanor.

"Let's forget about this," Chuck said, and Nate lifted a watery gaze to him after their drinks had been refilled. "At least for tonight." Nate nodded softly, accepting the proposition.

The brunette clinked their glasses again and he could see steady relaxation pouring over his best friend's face. He hoped it would evolve into sputters of laughter instead of tears streaming down his face. He at least wanted to rid the blonde of the sad expression his face refused to remove. It broke Chuck's heart.

He couldn't stand to see him so lost.

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A/N: Okay, some of the pronouns in that last paragraph were definitely bugging me, but I shall leave it. XD I hope you liked this! Please review! This is supposed to be my most homework-packed day for the next six days and somehow I slid in a time slot for writing this fic. XD Oh, God help me.


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